An embarrassed look. "Capone."
"Capone?" "Uh-huh."
"Too bad," I said. "A sense of humor almost makes a guy human. I'd hate to think that about Frank."
Jimmy added his cigarette butt to the pile on the table. "But he's got this other place he uses sometimes, in Franklinton."
"A grungy green house at the top of Endhill Road?"
Jimmy's eyes widened. "Uh-huh. How do you know that?"
"I know all sorts of things," I said. "And if I knew why Wally Gould was killed at the bar, I could die a happy man."
"Christ, Mr. S., I've been thinking about that for two days. That basement—-Jesus! Why would anyone go there? There's nothing to steal. Tony hasn't got anything."
I said, "Maybe they went there because that's where they had a key to."
"A key—you mean, mine? That they would've got from Ginny? Yeah, but still . . ."
I finished my beer, set the can down. "Yeah," I said. "But still." I zipped my jacket, pulled my gloves on. "Okay, Jimmy. Give me another day. But if I come up with nothing, then I think you should turn yourself in. Not to Brinkman, to the troopers. I have a friend there. And Jimmy? What I said the other night, about if they find you?"
"Yeah, I know. Don't shoot nobody." He tried to grin.
"Right," I said.
He stood in the doorway watching us leave. An unsteady shaft of light from the kerosene lamp pointed over the dust and rubble.
"Mr. S.?" he called after us. I turned. "How's Allie?"
"She's fine," I said. "She's worried about you."
"Tell her ... I don't know. Tell her I was asking."
In the car, picking our way down the rocky road, I said to Lydia, "I know he's hard to take."
"I liked him," she said.
"You're kidding."
"No. He reminds me of you."
"Oh, thanks."
"You said this wasn't a game anymore. Did he ever really think it was?"
"He said he did. But no. He didn't."
She steered onto the blacktop. "Where to, boss?"
I let the "boss" go. "Back to my place for my car, then to Antonelli's. You're going to meet our client, and if I'm lucky, Frank Grice will come to me."
"Ancient Chinese wisdom," Lydia said. "That kind of luck you don't need."
Chapter 16
Eve Colgate was at the bar talking quietly with Tony when Lydia and I walked into Antonelli's. The whole place was quiet, almost back to normal. Sic transit gloria. Tony poured me a drink, put together a club soda with lemon for Lydia. Eve and Lydia, appraising each other, headed for a back table. As I picked my bourbon off the bar to follow them Tony said, "Smith, I gotta talk to you."
I glanced at Lydia and Eve, found myself thinking how balanced they were, one quick and dark and small, the other tall, pale, still. "In a few minutes?"
"Okay." Tony went back to wiping glasses, his face unreadable.
Eve's clear eyes regarded me steadily as I sat. "How were the milking machines?" I asked her.
"They might do," she said. "Harvey thinks it will work."
"I'm glad." I sipped some bourbon, reminded myself about the beer at the Creekside, put the bourbon down. "Eve, I've told Lydia everything that's happened, and everything else she needs to know. She understands what's important to you, and she'll try as hard as I'm trying to keep your private life private."
Eve turned her eyes to Lydia, said nothing.
"I also understand," Lydia said, "that you don't want me here. I don't blame you. I'll try to make it as easy as
I can." She met Eve's eyes with her own polished obsidian ones.
"I find it difficult," Eve said slowly, "to understand how you"—she indicated both of us—"can do what you do."
"You mean dig out things people buried on purpose, and want to keep buried?" Lydia asked.
"That's exactly right."
"Well," Lydia said, "but someone's doing that to you, right? Or you're afraid they will. Having us on your side just evens the odds."
"Are you always sure you're on the right side?"
"No," Lydia said simply. "Sometimes I make mistakes."
Eve looked at me. "And you?"
"All the time," I said. "Morning, noon, and night. That's why I need Lydia. She's right at least sometimes. Can you two excuse me a minute? I have to talk to Tony."
As I stood, I caught a look passing between Lydia and Eve that seemed to augur well for their getting along, though I had the feeling it didn't do much for me.
I walked to the bar, leaned on it while Tony finished mixing someone's scotch and soda. "What's up?" I asked.
"C'mon outside," he said, wiping his hands on a towel, not looking at me.
We left the warmth of the bar for the damp night chill. This was Tony's call, so I followed him, stopped when he did, waited.
He had trouble starting. We hadn't gone far from the door, and he stood with his back to the building, hands in his pockets, neon glowing over one square shoulder, the pitted tin sign in the air behind him. "I gotta tell you," he said. "I gotta tell you what happened. What I did."
"Okay," I said.
"Last night—" he began, then suddenly stopped as his eyes flicked from mine to something behind me. Fear flashed across his face. I tried to turn, to see what it was, but Tony slammed into me like a wrecking ball. I crashed onto the gravel. Maybe I heard tires squeal, maybe I heard shouts; the only thing I was sure I heard was the whine of bullets cutting the cold air.
I twisted over, yanked my gun from my pocket, emptied it at the tail lights tearing out of the lot. I couldn't tell if I hit anything, but I didn't stop them.
Now there were shouts, running feet, shadows. I turned, saw light from the open door cutting a sharp rectangle on the ground. Tony lay just beyond it, two spreading pools of red merging on his chest.
I ripped off my jacket, tore my shirt off and wadded it up. I leaned hard against the places where Tony's blood welled. A forest of legs surrounded me, too many, too close; and then Lydia's voice: "All right, people! Move back, give them room. Come on, move!" The legs receded. Tony moaned, opened his eyes.
"All right, old buddy," I said, pressing on his chest. My heart was thudding against my own. "Don't move. Don't talk. It'll be all right." In the cold air the blood seeping under my hands was sticky and hot. I called, "Lydia!"
"Right there," she said.
"Get me something to use for a bandage. Call the nearest rescue squad."
"They're in Schoharie," said a calm voice beside me. Eve crouched on the gravel, took Tony's hand. He focused his gaze, with difficulty, on her face.
"Shit!" I said. "It'll take them fifteen minutes to get up here."
"What the hell happened?" A face bent over me; a voice echoed other voices on the edges of my attention.
"Back off!" I spat. The face retreated and the voices became background noise again.
Lydia reappeared clutching a roll of gauze and a pile of clean towels. "They're calling the ambulance," she told me, kneeling.
Tony's eyes closed. His breath scraped through lips tight with pain.
"No time," I said. "I'll take him. Lean here. Hard."
I reached for a folded towel, but Eve took it from me, said calmly, "I'll do this. Get the car."
She began peeling my shirt back from Tony's bloody chest, laying clean cloth, directing Lydia's help with short, quiet words.
I grabbed my jacket off the ground, searched it for my keys as I sprinted across the lot. I backed the car down the lot, pulled as close as I could to the place where Eve and Lydia knelt.
Eve was knotting the ends of the gauze. The dressing on the wounds was neat and tight, better than it would have been if I'd done it. I picked a big guy out of the wide- eyed crowd; he helped me lift Tony, manuever him into the back seat, strap him in as well as we could.
As I climbed out of the car, Eve slipped in. She perched on the seat where Tony lay. Someone pushed through the crowd, passed Eve a blanket. It was Marie, white under the deep shadows of her makeup.
I looked around for Lydia; she was at my side. "Call the state troopers," I told her. "Tell them I'm taking 30 to 145, 145 to 1, to the highway to Cobleskill. Tell them to pick me up wherever they can." She repeated the route back to me. "Good," I said. "When they get here, tell them what happened, but nothing else. Stay here until I call you from the hospital."